The End of Lies
by Laurie Bunter
Summary: His hands were covered with her blood.


I really didn't intend to write an angst fest but it's hard to be funny when the prompt is blood. Adam, this is for you.

_spoilers_: End of Evangelion

_disclaimer:_ Evangelion belongs to Gainax and Hideaki Anno.

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_**The End of Lies**_

by Laurie Bunter

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The metallic scent of blood filled his nostrils. It seemed to invade his mind, staining all his memories with the lingering aroma of death.

Shinji wanted to gag, but instead he feebly stared at his hands. He sat thinking of Misato's final half-truths. If only he could stop thinking of the warmth of her chest crushing him, the touch of her tongue against his…

Her blood, his hands were covered with her blood!

Misato had tried to save him by half-carrying him to safety. _But what good did it do?_ he thought miserably. _She was shot all the same. _

They expected too much from him; he couldn't save the world. He could hardly save himself from pissing in his pants half the time.

"Shinji you asshole! Where are you?" Asuka's voice rang and bounced off the metal walls. "Get up here RIGHT NOW!"

He would have kicked the intercom apart, really, if only to stop Asuka's nagging and the faint buzz of the Magi that crackled in the background. Most of NERV was overrun with the enemy, but still the main bridge managed to broadcast Asuka's complaints.

He wished they didn't bother. He didn't want to hear anything right now but the thumping of his own heart.

Shinji didn't have the strength to destroy anything, though, so instead he cowered, knees bent, trying to wrap himself into a tight fist. _No,_ Shinji thought, _I will not curl up like a fetus._ A fetus is wrapped in warm amniotic fluid, protected by both the womb and its mother.

He couldn't go back to that state. He could never go back.

_But you can be reborn again,_ his mind tempted him._ Just do what they asked you to do. Get into the Eva-01. Help Asuka. _

Shinji ignored that niggling thought. He didn't want to do that. It was no use. To get into the Eva would be to plunge his head willingly into a cockpit swimming with LCL. LCL was not comforting. LCL was a putrid unknown. How long did he accepted the established lies of NERV and his father? "The LCL will help you breathe and sync with your Eva," they pressured him to accept the liquid. "LCL is good for you."

LCL was just like blood. It was watery and got everywhere. Occasionally clumps of thickened strands would cling to the crooks and crannies of his body if he had failed to shower thoroughly. LCL stained his school uniform so badly he was forced to throw his clothes away, more than once. LCL made him stink like the drainage outside a butcher's shop.

Shinji hated LCL as much as he hated his father. The smell of LCL reminded him of the last time he saw Kaworu, as he held his friend in a death grip and drained him of all life. The scent of LCL reminded him of his guilt.

"No more blood," Shinji whispered to no one in particular.

Eva-01 stared at him with those blank unseeing eyes.

"If only blood did not run through my veins," he mumbled. "then we'd all be okay."

"I swear to kick your ass, Shinji, the moment you get up here, for being such a slowpoke! So get up here now!" Asuka continued to curse. "What the hell is taking you?"

She continued to verbally abuse him, probably knowing all the while he could hear her. Shinji didn't care. He had grown immune to Asuka's complaints.

As the seconds ticked away, though, Asuka stopped yelling at Shinji, at the production line Evas, at the world. Asuka simply stopped yelling over the static of the intercom.

The silence brought no relief though.

The next noise he heard from was a groan, rich with visceral pain.

"Please, Shinji-kun," a softer, frightened female voice suddenly spoke up. He dimly recognized the voice, it belonged to Maya. "Please… the Eva-02… "

"No," Shinji said, and turned his back.

It was then he heard, and not even through the intercom, the terrible sound of multiple lances impaling Asuka.

How was it possible that metal could be sliced apart so easily?

This was only more blood on his hands.

"She's dying out there, Shinji-kun! Please!" The voices outside his head were anguished.

Incredibly, without his desiring it, Eva-01 stirred. The slumbering giant came to life and crashed its hand against the container wall.

"Mother?" he whispered.

_You will be safer inside,_ her glowing eyes said. _Trust me. _

The gleaming fingers stretched out to him, demanding an immediate answer.

As Shinji reluctantly climbed into position, the squawking of the intercom grew faint. He could not hear Asuka's moans of pain anymore.

_Everything will be all right,_ the words momentarily flashed on the screen for him. _Trust me._

Yet his bowels felt twisted and his head throbbed. Even then Shinji knew the truth. Even before Eva-01 launched itself and reached the surface, even before he could set his eyes on Asuka's mangled body and the carnage caused by Seele, he knew: all the reassurances were convenient lies.

Shinji could taste the foul sputum clawing up the back of his throat.

The real agony of existence was about to begin.

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_-finis-_


End file.
